Your Interspiritual Bishop

Craig’s Bio

Bishop Craig Bergland was born and raised in the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. He attended Marquette University and completed Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Biblical Theology and Psychology at Wisconsin Lutheran College. He did graduate work in Religious Studies at Cardinal Stritch University and earned a Master of Divinity Degree and Doctor of Divinity from the Anglican Divinity School.

Craig was ordained in 1999 at Community of the Living Spirit, an ecumenical faith community in suburban Milwaukee. In 2004 he was elected Presiding Bishop of the Universal Anglican Church. Having a passion for the full inclusion of all people in the life of the Church, Craig has been active in The Bishops and Elders Council, HRC’s Clergy Call for Justice, and has been a leader in religious outreach at Milwaukee’s Pridefest celebration. His current on the ground ministry in Milwaukee is Compassionate Heart, which meets in Milwaukee’s Bay View neighborhood. Craig has written Rite III, an inclusive language worship book that includes an inclusive language version of the Psalter; A Journey Toward Awakening, the story of his journey into Interspirituality; Dispatches from the Interspiritual Front, a collection of writings on various topics from an Interspiritual perspective; and RHIMES Interspirituality: A Guidebook for Practice.

In addition to his ongoing role as Presiding Bishop of the Universal Anglican Church, Bishop Bergland’s current project is RHIMES Interspirituality, a system of spirituality that recognizes the many commonalities between the great historic religious and spiritual traditions as a path toward increased understanding, dialogue, and peace on Earth. RHIMES recognizes Jesus as primarily a wisdom and enlightenment teacher and Christ Consciousness as enlightenment – something not unique to the one we know as Jesus, but in fact a quality of all the great Masters from all Traditions and available to everyone who chooses to pursue it. RHIMES seeks to journey with all people from all spiritual backgrounds and perspectives, and affirms all people as being inseparably connected – and understands that very connection to be the essence of what many call God, from whom we can never be separated. RHIMES Gatherings are spiritual gatherings of those seeking spiritual tools to transform themselves, their communities, and the world.

Craig lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin with his wife Erin; their adult children Peter, Tori, and Brandie; and their grandchildren Natalia and Greyson.

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4 thoughts on “Craig’s Bio”

I am all for understanding other religion. However the idea theta Islam is compatible with the actual reality and life of Jesus is impossible since the Muslim version of “christ” is a lie and distortion that denies all Christ was according to scripture.

A personal value judgement by you is based upon nothing more than your own assumption that I expect everyone to agree with me. This is of course a false analysis since the question I put to you is completely ignored and does not ask for people to agree with my opinion and you settle for an ad hominem attack. I repeat the question again, is the Islamic version of Christ the real Christ ? or is the Biblical version of Christ the real Christ ? This is not asking you or everyone else to agree with my opinion in any sense but asks you or others to state their views on the question.
You of course in your ugly ad hominem claim I am into ego yet I do not like you proliferate myself across the internet with numerous youtube and blog posts which never seem to attract answers and I can guess you will delete the uncomfortable ones.
So please refrain from personal criticism and answer my question about Jesus please.

Let’s be fair – you comment was not posed as a question, it was a statement, hence my response. Since you now phrased it as a question, I need to ask which depiction of Christ you are asking about? I am not being evasive, but there is the pre-resurrection Jesus, the pre-existing Christ, the Christ of atonement theology – the list goes on and on.

Generally, I am of the opinion that no one religion has everything precisely right. They all miss the mark somewhere, and there are many different manifestations of each religion. There are literally thousands of different Christian denominations, to which Christ do you refer?

I will say, Generally speaking, that I am not a believer in substitutionary atonement theory, nor do I believe that Jesus (as opposed to the Christ) was in any biological sense the son of God.